Monday, 28 January 2013

Chairperson of SMSL, Mr. Tan Bun Teet's speech at Oeko Lauch

The Government and Lynas have always claimed that the people have no scientific evidence to keep the temporary operating licence away from Lynas. Now we have a detailed document explaining why the licence should never have been issued and how the Lynas project will pollute our environment and its radioactive waste will leave undue burden for future generations.

The list goes on as evidenced in the Oeko report.

This report is a long- time coming and we highly appreciate the hard work and the thorough analysis carried out by Gerhard and his peers at the Oeko Institute.

This report clearly shows that the Lynas plant in Malaysia is not a zero-harm operation, far from it in fact. Lynas, the IAEA and our own government have all failed in their duty of care to ensure that the necessary standard is uphold and due procedure followed in allowing the Lynas project to go ahead.

SMSL will be using this report and the findings for future court cases. The report will be widely publicised and shared amongst professionals and concerned people in Malaysia so that we are clear what risks and hazards the Lynas project is posing on us.

The report will be widely circulated to journalists and institutions all over the world, especially to financial institutions, universities and to corporations who have signed up to buy Lynas' rare earth oxides. They will learn that Lynas has been deceiving them on the ecological sustainability of its products.

SMSL will of course use the report to pressure the Government to do its job as a regulator and a law enforcer. The people have spoken loud and clear. Any government that blindly supports the Lynas project like the current regime will not get their votes!

SMSL would like to thank the generous and caring public in Kuantan and elsewhere in Malaysia and overseas who have donated generously to the Stop Lynas campaign. Without their contributions, this report would not have been forthcoming and we would have to put up with a world-scale polluting plant without a good fight.

SMSL also commend the tiresless effort and energy of the public in continuing to protest to oppose the Lynas rare earth project. Without this energy and commitment, the Stop Lynas campaign will not be as strong and as well known today.

I urge everyone to continue to play their part and do whatever possible to help us Stop this polluting and hazardous project - STOP LYNAS!

It would appear that there is a major mistake in the report regarding the level of radiation from the WPL waste stream. Did your consultant understand that the initial output is immediately diluted through other waste streams before going to secondary processing as acceptable co-product? Did he in fact confirm his understanding of the process with Lynas or AELB, the ultimate authority? From reading the consultants preamble he appears to have based his findings only on information provided by SMSL. Can you please provide some substantiation that you have provided the consultant with data that provides a true and fair representation of the WPL process?

For a scientific report to be validated it must be assessed by independent scientific analysis then if all agree with the outcomes the report is generally accepted. In this case the OEKO report has not been assessed by their peers and consequently will not be accepted as fact by the scientific community or a court of Law